Hades: Soul Supervisor
by Lightwing23
Summary: As December 21, 2012 - the end of the Mayan long calendar - dawns on Earth, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, must save the world of the living from catastrophe... but will it affect his job performance ratings? Rated K for some subject matter that may not be suitable for younger audiences.
1. Scroll I

_While on a camping trip deep in the mountains, I discovered a trio of scrolls bound with a strange wax seal. I was foolish enough to open them and read their contents. The scrolls appear to be a journal which, if true, will change how I view the universe, life, and everything that comes after._

December 21, 2012

The mortal world almost perished because of her. No, that isn't right. The mortal world almost perished because _I loved her_. Can you imagine! Hades, Lord of the Underworld, falling for a _human_. After all this time, brother Zeus has finally rubbed off on me.

I've been getting a pretty bad rap for the past several years. The mortals used to respect me. They had an appreciation of the afterlife. Death. _Me_. When they crossed the river Acheron and saw me for the first time, they knew who I was. They didn't argue or complain or try to bargain. They were patient while I sorted out where in Hades they were headed (_note to self: finalize a new name for the Underworld. Calling both it and yourself "Hades" is rather narcissistic, and you would know; Narcissus steals your mirror every day. Further note to self: find new place to hide mirror_).

These days are different. Now the mortals cry when they see me. They ask stupid things like if the Fields of Punishment are "where the good people go" (hint: it's not. Check the name). Charon works on credit since no one brings coins for the ferryman anymore. The living mortals think I'm some kind of evil demon who wants to kill everyone. Why would I want to do that? My job is tiring enough as it is. Souls never disappear, and people die every day. The Underworld only gets more crowded, and it's up to me to organize the blasted place. We have a population crisis down here. I have never had a day off. If anything, I am _tired_.

Besides, even if I did want to kill every mortal, it's not my job in the first place; that's Thanatos' gig. I'm just the guy who oversees the dead, the Supervisor of Souls, if you will. Poor Thanatos. His job's gotten almost as complicated as mine has. Nothing like the good old days, when mortals only numbered in the millions. At least Hermes was smart. He used to escort the souls to the Underworld. Now he delegates to lesser gods. Thanatos insists on killing every mortal himself. I think he gets some sick pleasure from it. There isn't much that rattles me, but that god creeps me out.

Anyway, today started like any other. Gods don't sleep, though sometimes I wish we could. It is cruel irony that we cannot partake of one of the sweetest gifts we bestowed on the mortals. Since there's no sun in the Underworld, we installed clocks _everywhere_ to keep track of the time. My office has two dozen – one for each time zone. I noted the time and the date (we resisted for centuries, but finally we caved and started using the Gregorian calendar). December 21, 2012. The end of the Mayan long calendar. All the Mayans here in the Underworld were already celebrating. The end of the long calendar was supposed to be an auspicious time to be alive. None of them seemed to mind that they were all dead. I think the irony was lost on them. They even tried to sacrifice someone. _Mortals_.

I took a few minutes to observe the living. Somehow, someone had spread the word that the Mayans thought today would be the end of the world (a gross miscalculation which the Mayans somehow found hilarious). The living gathered stockpiles. They built shelters. They fought over simple things like water and toilet paper – an object I've never understood. Maybe I've been around death for so long that I enjoy the smell of decay.

I checked my ledgers for the day. Lately we average about 150,000 new entries to the Underworld per day, and today we were set for 192,073 – certainly higher than usual, but not exactly the end of the world.

I took a cursory glance through the list to see if any names stuck out. It's always helpful to keep an eye out and stay a few steps ahead. Celebrity deaths typically mean a few extra suicides and a bit of extra commotion down here. We also keep a list of cult leaders, for the same reason. Mortals are curiously social creatures; sometimes, they are tragically like the old saying about lemmings. But today only one name stood out: Vivian Livers. She wasn't a celebrity, or a cult leader, or even some self-important middle management with a small host of peons at her disposal, but the name was so ridiculous that I simply _had_ to look into the matter further. Surely no parent was so mean that they would name their child "Alive One Who Lives".

I pulled up her file. _Vivian Livers_, it read. _Born March 20, 1980. 32 years old. American. Married. No kids. Maiden name "Darte_._"_ At this point I actually laughed. Darte, derivative of Death. This woman married and went from death to life, and today she would return. Laughing is rare for me. It's not that I don't enjoy humor, it's just that I'm not around very many people who do. Being dead is rough on the comedy business. Sure, we have plenty of comedians who try to keep morale up – Sam Clemens and Voltaire never lack in fresh, biting political commentary – but for the most part the souls have lost track of what "funny" means. Humor is just one of those things reserved for the living. Helps them cope with their condition, I suppose.

After checking the ledgers I usually walk the floor. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't trust anyone else to do my job. One time I found a crack in a pipe feeding Elysium's largest waterfall. The whole place would have flooded, and all those goodly souls could have been swept down to Tartarus, were it not for me. That's another thing no one else around here seems to appreciate: everything about the Underworld is carefully manufactured according to my desires. Walt Disney has nothing on me (though he did help a little with the Blessed Isles renovations back in the '80s. Impossible man. Brilliant, but I am never working with him again).

I typically walk each realm in order of happiness, beginning with the bad. It's better for my psyche that way (the old myths never properly captured my sense of romantic optimism). I checked on the Tartarus pit first. Kronos and the other Titans glared up at me with looks that would kill if there was anything around not dead already (_note to self: reconsider proposal for Olympus to move Tartarus off Earth. Perhaps the sun? Or Jupiter? Zeus may appreciate the go boost on that one_).

The Fields of Punishment were next. Now, my contract is very clear: the punishments are left up to the other gods, not me. But Odysseus helped me find a loophole: there's nothing preventing me from _helping_ these poor souls, so long as their punishments are still carried out. So no one ever stops me from deadening the nerves of the guys having their livers pecked out by vultures, or lightening the weight of the stones being pushed up the mountains, or warming the waters of those set to eternally drown. It's not much, but the souls seem to appreciate it. I've just never been an aggressive guy. I guess my situation has, shall we say, tempered my familial temper. Whether I want it or not, in the end… _everyone_ comes to me.

The Asphodel Meadows were bland and uneventful, as always. I've noticed that the souls in other parts of Hades (or "Me", as I sometimes joke to no one) disapprove of the souls here. These were the "middle of the road" folks, the ones who never rocked the boat for better or worse. The souls in the Fields of Punishment and the Elysian Fields sometimes refer to this place as the Meadow of Regret. They say that these were the people who never really lived. I can't say that I care. So long as the plumbing's in good working order and the shopping malls are all open (I've discovered that malls are the perfect place to keep indifferent souls entertained), I am content.

A little brawl had broken out in the Elysian Fields, and I knew who it was before I even got there. Immanuel Kant and David Hume, philosophers who had been contemporary to each other in life, bickered nearly every day in death over the virtues of reason and skepticism. I've long since given up trying to separate them (you might say that I am skeptical that they may be reasoned with). I just let them go at it. They can't actually hurt each other, and besides, it provides a bit of entertainment to the other souls. I am more than just the Soul Supervisor. I am the Eternal Entertainer.

Finally, the Isles of the Blessed were perfect…as always (a fact of which Mr. Disney did not fail to remind me, curse that soul).

As I walked the realm, though, my thoughts always returned to that bizarre name: Vivian Livers. Each recollection of it still brought a chuckle (_note to self: laughing to yourself, especially when some of the souls still call you "Satan," may be bad for morale_), but something nagged at my core, as though this name held some importance. By the time I left the Isles, I had already made up my mind: I would visit this woman. On Earth.

By Olympus, I can't even remember the last time I did such a foolish thing!


	2. Scroll II

The arrangements for my departure were simple. Hades can pretty much run itself for short periods of time so long as there's no natural disaster above and Cerberus has been fed (upon looking back over this journal, I see that I forgot to feed him. That may explain why several of the souls looked a bit worse for wear when I returned). I never go anywhere without my cell phone; even the Lord of the Dead has to stay on top of the latest trends. You should see me dance the "Gangnam Style".

One of the great gifts of godhood is speedy travel. Mortals often talk about the journey being more important than the destination, but we gods don't see the point; for us, there _is_ no journey, only time lost.

I appeared in Vivian's apartment and had a little look around. The Livers (Liverses?) were not a tidy couple. Laundry sat in piles. Dirty dishes lay in disorganized stacks in the sink, their surfaces crawling with the kind of life and death that are generally outside of my jurisdiction. The desk in the corner was completely covered in a random mass of paper.

I couldn't help but notice something in particular: picture frames were _everywhere_: every shelf, every wall, every counter. I took one off the nearest bookcase and looked it over. Vivian and her husband were dressed in funny jumpsuits and helmets, smiling at the camera. I knew it to be from October, just two months ago. One of the great things about being me is that time is something of a nebulous affair. I can touch an object like this picture and move back through time to see the events of the past. Weird I know, but hey, I'm a god, remember? Try telling a square about cubes and it'd think that you're nuts, too (so would I, actually; you'd be talking to a geometric shape).

I focused on the picture and immediately found myself in a rickety old plane with the side door open and a small group of people lined up and ready to jump. I had heard of this before. Skywalking, I think. Or maybe skydiving; I can never remember. There are so many little oddities that mortals do to which I can't possibly relate. This sky-whatever is one of them. It's hard to understand when you technically have no mass.

Vivian leapt through the open door without a moment's hesitation, her husband right behind her. I followed as a dour little vapor trail.

It was a cloudy day, and immediately I thought of Zeus. Lightning's kind of his thing, and I've known him to take pot shots at skybound mortals to keep his skills sharp in case the Titans ever break out of Tartarus (he trusts me about as far as he can throw me, and I'm great at becoming nothing but dead weight whenever he tries. Comes with the territory. Then I tell him I "matter" and I laugh and laugh and laugh as he sails away in his little cloud of brotherly angst).

The mortals had hardly been in the air for five seconds before I heard the roll of thunder. Zeus stood on the clouds above, and he had his eye trained right on Vivian. Something about the look on his face struck me as odd, but at the time I couldn't place it. He hurled a bolt that went wide. Then another. And another. I've never seen him make more than one strike before today. He threw seven in all, each one getting slightly closer. He never tried for the husband or any of the other jumpers. After the seventh miss, Zeus harrumphed and retreated from his cloud. Vivian landed lightly, her face full of joy, and embraced her husband as soon as his feet touched the ground. Above them, the clouds retreated over the ocean and joined with a larger mass that I knew to be a hurricane. I saw the storm's future – the past of the current present – and watched this hurricane shift directions to beat against the coastal cities where Vivian lived.

I moved back into the present and tried to process what I'd seen. Something wasn't right. Zeus never concentrated on one target like that. There's a reason they say lightning never strikes twice. And that hurricane? That was weird. I remembered it well: Sandy. The paperwork on it had been a Peloponnesian nightmare. Had Zeus used it to try to kill this woman?

I took another photo off the wall. This event was further back – from September, eleven years ago. The photo had come from a newspaper. The back of Vivian's head could just be seen in the bottom corner. A wall of dust formed the majority of the shot.

I traveled back, even though I had relived these moments countless times. Vivian sat behind a desk in a skyscraper (what those of us in the godly business call an Olympian footstool). It was a clear morning, with planes in the sky and hardly a cloud to be seen. Vivian's phone rang. The voice on the other end mentioned something about a birthday cake for an office party, and Vivian offered to go buy one.

I followed her out of the building, shaking my head in disbelief as the first plane struck her very floor. Twice now she had avoided death from the sky. This hardly seemed coincidence. Zeus was gunning for this woman. But why? She'd die eventually. What was so important that she die _now_?

I returned again to the present. I figured I had time for one more picture before I had to get back home. I chose a photograph from a collage on the wall. October, 1994. Vivian was fourteen and travelling with her parents. The photo was taken during a snowy pit stop somewhere in Indiana. The happy trio returned to the car with an extra passenger (that is, me). I sat quietly in the back and listened to them talk about moving to a new house in Chicago and how driving was so much more fun than flying because they saw more. "It's about the journey, not the destination," said Vivian's father. "When you fly, you only see the inside of a boring old plane." He held up a folder of airplane tickets, and I took the liberty of reading the information. American Eagle Flight 4184. It took me a minute to recall that one. At this very moment, I soon realized, Thanatos was busy taking every soul from that flight and handing them over to one of Hermes' assistants. I would see them just moments later. They would tell me of strange icy conditions that had just appeared out of nowhere.

That had "Zeus" written all over it.

I returned to the present. I was beginning to take this personally. Zeus was taking life and death into his own hands, and this was something I simply could not allow. We do things a certain way around here. The mortals call it Science, and we have certain laws that we cannot break. If Zeus has some ulterior motive, Vivian may not be the only one in danger. I didn't want to think of what might happen if Big Brother messes with the laws of Nature.

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn't even notice the apartment stirring. Before I knew it there was Vivian, dressed in what I knew as the traditional medical attire of the United States. She grabbed a banana from a bowl, giggled as she sloshed through a swamp of dirty laundry, and was out the door.

I couldn't help it. I followed her.

She rode a bicycle, humming cheerfully as she pedaled through the pre-dawn light. This was something I simply wasn't used to. The past few times I've visited Earth in recent years, it has felt more and more like the Asphodel Meadows: characterless souls going about some set routine dictated by supervisors like me. They make a bit of money, they grow old, they die, they come to me acting much the same as they did in life. I had some of the lesser gods conduct research on the matter some time ago, but all they concluded was that people were watching quite a lot of television.

It's hard to explain, but following Vivian through the empty streets was _invigorating_ (a word I never use lightly). She was at peace with her world. She waved to neighbors and smiled at passing cars. She sang at stoplights. I eventually realized that she represented what I usually thought Life was like. I laughed again at the irony of her name. Why would Zeus want to destroy such a lovely creature?

I was surprised when she passed right by the local hospital and continued on towards a rundown neighborhood close to the seaside. This place had been an extra source of souls for us lately – nothing like Africa, say, or the Middle East, but we always have to pay special attention to these places of disaster. Zeus' hurricane had killed more than just humans. Many houses had caved in, and others had such water damage within them that I half-expected to see Poseidon lounging in one of the waterlogged armchairs. But I don't deal in dead dreams or flatlining realities. My focus is strictly anthropological.

Vivian stopped at the community center and clocked in with a cheery "hello" to everyone she saw. The way others responded to her, I thought that she was their head doctor until a bored-looking fellow caught her in the hallway and asked for her assistance. He called her _nurse_.

The doctor stopped outside a room with a particularly sickly patient and his family. I knew this man; I'd be doing his paperwork later tonight. The doctor explained the situation: he had tried to tell the patient's family that there was nothing they could do for this man. The patient needed to go to the county hospital, but the family didn't want to move him because they had no car and could not travel such a distance. The doctor (who apparently had made it his life's goal to play into the negative stereotypes surrounding physicians) ordered Vivian to convince the family to save the patient's life. They were being selfish, he said, to let the man die just so that they could stay by his side… and the doctor needed the bed for another patient that was about to leave the emergency room.

I wondered what the doctor would do if I appeared and explained to him that this man was about to die no matter what hospital he went to, but the whole episode would probably give the man a heart attack, and I didn't want to bother filling out the paperwork on the doctor as well as Vivian and the patient today. The living enjoy meeting me even less than the dead.

The doctor turned and retreated down the hall faster than you could say "anaphylactic shock". Vivian entered the room, knelt by the patient's bed, and spoke to him in a quiet, soothing voice. They talked of the patient's life, his family, his loves and losses. Then it happened. "I am ready to die," said the patient. "It's alright. I've had a good life, and life is about the journey…"

"Not the destination," finished Vivian.

(_Note to self: possible alternate name for Hades: Destination?)_

The patient smiled weakly and turned to his family. He thanked them for staying by his side. They cried and hugged him. Vivian quietly slipped out of the room. The doctor had returned from his emergent errand, so she told him the news. He took it with an annoyed huff and disappeared again down the hall. The door to the patient's room opened, and a teenaged boy appeared. He asked Vivian if the patient was about to die. I won't forget what she said anytime soon.

"Your father has led a wonderful life and touched the lives of so many others. Death is a beautiful thing that we all face, and your father is very brave. People who fear death sometimes forget to live. Your father is surrounded by everyone he loves, especially you. I can't think of a better way to pass on from this life, can you?"

"Are you afraid to die?" the boy asked.

Vivian shook her head. "I used to be. I've had some near-death experiences that terrified me. When the second one happened, I thought I would never go outside again. I stayed in for days afterward… but that wasn't living. In the end, I realized that if I went on living like that, then I may as well have died. No, I am ready for death whenever it comes, but in the meantime I will live each day like it's my last." She chuckled. "It's cliché, I know, but it really is true. Don't you think?"

The boy didn't answer. Vivian smiled at him warmly. He smiled back and returned to his father's room. I glanced down the hall and noticed Thanatos in his full Grim Reaper garb. I think being the god of death has started to get to him. He's taken to theatrics to keep things interesting. Sometimes he brings fog machines. Once he brought a mariachi band. He passed me with a small nod and slipped straight through the closed door. One of Hermes' assistants raced after him on winged sandals (_note to self: have Hephaestus make those godlings some rocket boots for Festivus next week_).

My cell phone rang (Ada Lovelace set my ringtone to "It's Rainin' Men" and I don't know how to change it). I knew that my time was up, and I returned to the emptiness of my office feeling… _discontent_. Vivian was ready to die, but that didn't explain why Zeus seemed so intent on fulfilling her wishes.

I realized my phone was still ringing. "Yes?" I answered.

"Sir," it was Sekretarios (the god of secretaries). "Zeus demands your presence on Olympus."

"Tell him I'll see him outside of Las Vegas. Area 1."

I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. A nuclear testing site seemed like the safest place in case things went to, well, _Hades_.

Sekretarios called back a moment later and said that Zeus was furious but didn't refuse. I collected my thoughts, closed my eyes, and opened them in the Nevada desert.


	3. Scroll III

Not a hundred feet in front of me was a gathering dust storm. "What do you want?" I asked it.

The storm swirled into a funnel and came towards me. Lightning struck down its center. The dervish scattered, and from it stormed (rather literally) my dear brother.

"What in _hell_ do you think you're doing?" he boomed, using a colloquialism that I have always rather resented.

My family brings out the apathetic in me. It can't be helped. Thousands of years of familial resentment will do that to you (and I'm still rather raw with Zeus for having the planet Pluto demoted). "You're keeping me from my work," I said.

"To hell with your work!" I chose not to point out that hell _was_ my work, so to speak. "Why are you following that woman?"

Nothing I said would have helped, so I stayed quiet as the dead. Zeus' face turned bright red. I am always astounded at how volatile my two brothers are. It's a wonder I turned out how I did. I suppose I inherited those genes from my mother, and they our father. If gods _had_ genes, anyway.

I turned to leave.

"Stay," Zeus commanded. Being the god of the dead means, _ipso_ _facto_, that I have no authority over an immortal. Reluctantly, I stayed. "That woman," continued Zeus. "Do you love her?"

The thought seemed so absurd to me that I almost laughed, but then I remembered Zeus' penchant for love affairs and realized that it was quite a fair question coming from him.

I started to say no, but my voice caught. I _couldn't_ say no, and Zeus knew it. I saw a flash of triumph light his face. I had to take a different angle.

"Why have you been trying to kill her?" I asked. If there's one thing I've learned from death, it's that being direct saves you quite a bit of trouble.

"If I wanted her dead, she'd be dead." Zeus' right eye twitched. He's never noticed it before, but it's his tell: it happens every time he lies. I thought Hera would marry me on the spot when I pointed it out to her.

I decided to see where he would lead me. "So why kill her today?" I asked.

"I have nothing to do with her death _today_. The Fates foresaw your love of her. We are doing you a _favor_, brother! We're sending you a new mistress! Demeter says that you have grown tired of Persephone, that she spends more time outside of the Underworld than in."

"The mortals call it 'global warming'." I knew he was still lying, but there would be no getting him to spill the proverbial beans. Instead I thanked him for fulfilling my apparent lust. His mood changed from furious to jovial as fast as a summer storm, and he swept me up in a hug that would have broken my back if I'd had a skeleton. We went our separate ways: him back to Olympus to scout out some hot young woman to woo, me to go see some ugly old hags.

Like I said before, Time is a crazy thing for us gods. Having already seen Vivian's past, I wanted to know her future. If I traveled there now, all I would be able to see is her impending death. To witness what _could_ be, I had to visit the Fates.

I don't know why they still live together. Modern technology allowed us to make each of them an eye of their own a few years ago, but even us immortals are creatures of habit (in some ways more than mortals are), and I think they are simply comfortable living as they do.

They at least had the courtesy of feigning happiness at the sight of me.

"Vivian Livers," I said without so much as a "hello". As I said before, when it comes to death, being direct saves you a lot of trouble.

"Oh yes," said Lachesis, the measurer of life's threads. "She's due today." So casual. We're desensitized to death.

"I was just about to do the deed!" Atropos held her shears proudly.

I turned to Clotho, who spins the threads. "Show me her future if she doesn't die today."

The three turned and looked to each other nervously. Having shared an eye all their lives, they still weren't used to reading faces or, more importantly, masking them. They were trying to hide something. They were failing.

"The thread has been spun," said Clotho evasively. "It matters not how she _could_ live. She will not."

"It matters to me," I said. "You three owe me for your sight."

"These eyes don't see as well," pouted Atropos. The other two agreed with her, so I snapped up their eyes in my cloak.

"Answer _now_," I said, "or get used to seeing my pockets."

They wailed protests for a few seconds, but I poked each eye until they relented. They knew it was pointless; this happened to them all the time. It was something of an inside joke. Personally, I think they just like the attention. Masochists.

Clotho fumbled about for her staff, which she then used to produce a fine strand of life. Further fumbling found the strand in the hands of Lachesis, who read it carefully between her fingers. Her face changed from fury, to surprise, and at last to wonder as she advanced down the thread.

She handed it to me.

Images flashed before me as fast as I could process them. The move to Chicago, the attack on New York, the lightning strikes while skywalking, today's encounter with the dying patient, and then suddenly new information. Vivian and her husband at a doctor, being told that they cannot conceive a child. Flashes of them sitting in offices, visiting orphanages, taking a young girl home. School dances, graduation, college, science labs, rockets, space. Her name was Hope. This family was crazy for prophetic names, apparently.

"The girl," said Lachesis, "is destined to create rockets. Should Vivian not survive today, Hope will create rockets that harm."

"And if Vivian lives?" I asked.

"Hope will share the woman's love of life. Her rockets will save mankind. They will take the mortals to other planets. Life, where here on Earth the mortals spread death."

I recalled what I said earlier, about how Earth has felt more like the Underworld lately.

"And Zeus knows all of this?" I asked.

"He commands us," the three said as one.

My mind raced. This girl that Vivian adopts would save mankind, yet Zeus wants to kill her. Hope wouldn't be adopted; she would build the tools of mankind's destruction. Man would cease to be. The Underworld could finally stop growing. But Zeus would no longer have a kingdom.

"What does Zeus gain from destroying mankind?" I asked.

"No more!" the Fates cried. "Give us back our eyes!"

I held their eyes in my hand. I squeezed. Slowly. They shrieked, and this time Atropos answered my question.

"Zeus is lord of the gods and the sky!" she cried. "If the skies and seas become as the Underworld…"

"Then he'll rule everything," I whispered. One kingdom from three. Zeus at the helm of the universe.

Poseidon and I would be out of jobs.

I threw the eyes at the Fates and shifted back to my office. I punched the call button on my phone. "Where's Thanatos?" I demanded.

"Approaching Vivian Livers," Sekretarios answered calmly. I swore and moved to the mortal world as fast as metaphysical space would allow, which is pretty darn fast.

Vivian rode her bicycle, humming along happily as she made her way home through traffic. I followed, unsure of what in the name of Zeus I was going to do.

Rush hour is always a tricky business, I hear, but really it's not something I encounter that often. Vehicular accidents are of course a mainstay in my line of work, but they tend to happen at the odd points of the day, when drunken mortals have the space to gather the speed necessary for a visit from Thanatos. But cyclists are never safe around cars, particularly at a time of day when the average mortal is irritated from his dead-end job and just wants to get home so that he can deaden himself further in front of a screen (our research shows).

I didn't think on it much at the time, but looking back, Zeus' master plan seems laughably short-sighted, not that Zeus has _ever_ been known for thinking that far ahead. All he had to do would be to ask me what my life was like. That would make him reconsider this great plan of turning all the world into a giant Hades (though part of me does find it flattering; Zeus, lord of the gods, wants _my_ job). Death is not volatile. It doesn't change. It's only stormy in fiction like Dante's _Inferno_. All that Zeus would rule would be an empty, bombed-out landscape and an Underworld full of discontented, radioactive souls.

Sometimes I wish Olympus was a democracy. I'd vote for Athena – you know, the goddess of _wisdom_.

Much like death itself, Thanatos is hard to see coming, but one who is often around death can feel his presence. And so it was that I felt him approaching as Vivian neared an intersection. Thanatos rode with a tired old accountant who was about to run the red light and crush this mortal woman whom I now know I loved.

Part of me wanted to let her die. That was the easy, obvious solution to all my problems. She could be with me in the Underworld forever. In an odd way, I knew that she would love me. But then I also knew, deep in my heart, that she loved life too much. If she knew that I had chosen her over mankind, she would never forgive me.

So I made the only logical choice. I took the form of a raven and attacked Vivian's face.

The experience was not pleasant for anyone. Vivian swiped at me, lost her balance, and flipped her bike sideways. She tumbled into the side of a car and stopped just short of the intersection. The accountant's car caught Vivian's bike beneath its tires. The bike wedged into the axel of the front tire, which slid the car sideways at an impressive speed until it T-boned against the streetlight.

Predictably, most of the cars at the intersection went about their own way. I ditched the raven act and returned to Vivian. She was alive but in bad shape. I could sense internal bleeding throughout her abdomen. Thankfully the owner of the car she had slammed into was already calling an ambulance. I glanced at Thanatos' car. He stood next to the driver's side, pulling the soul of the accountant from what used to be a seat. Thanatos saw me and nodded.

His first and only rule: you cannot cheat death, but sometimes you can make a trade.

December 21 wanes as I write this. Only a few hours have passed since I averted the end of mankind (the Mayans just about died laughing when I told them, if you'll forgive the pun). I can see Vivian's true future now, and it is as the Fates said it could be. She is being told at this very moment that the accident rendered her infertile. Part of me wonders if this wasn't her destiny all along, but I'll leave that for Kant and Hume to ponder in the Elysian Fields. All the same, I found Vivian's life-thread hidden in my pocket, and I'm not taking any chances. It stays with me until the proper time.

Feeling somewhat responsible for the accountant being here sooner than he was supposed to, I offered him a job as my new personal assistant. His name is Freddy. Turns out he's a rather gifted bass player, and Thanatos has already tapped him for his new death metal band, Reapercussions.

Zeus tried to send a storm to the Underworld, but as my contract clearly states, he has no power here. I took the energy from the storm and used it to power the new amusement park Mr. Disney had been planning for the Blessed Isles. The soul actually _thanked_ me. Of everything that happened today, that probably surprised me the most.

I decided to send this journal to the mortal world, not so that anyone will know what I have done, but so that you mortals will do what you can. In the end, Zeus may get what he wants. Vivian's daughter will save mankind by allowing them to go elsewhere. If mankind continues down its current track, Earth may still become one giant Hades. Zeus may have his revenge on me soon. But, should that day come, I won't regret the decisions I made to get there. Life is a journey, not a destination, even when you're immortal.

Signed,

Hades

_[Continue on to see the author's notes and commentary, but note that there are NO new story elements! This is the end. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed reading!]_


	4. Author's NotesTrivia

_The way I see it, this website is dedicated to the practicing and love of writing, so I felt it made sense to include this behind-the-scenes look at how I tried to run things. FULL DISCLOSURE: There is NO new story content here. No mas. It's all done. But if you were interested in why I made certain choices or just how stupid I could possibly be, then look no further. My intent is less to show off and more to help you come up with your own ideas. Maybe I looked at something in a way you hadn't considered. Maybe I made a mistake that you can learn from and avoid. Anyway I had a lot of fun writing this thing and, if you've made it this far, I'm guessing you had fun reading it. Now on to the good stuff._

First of all, I should note that I absolutely did not intend to make light of the three disasters which my fictional character survived. All three – the plane crash in 1994, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 – were horrible, very real events that affected countless lives. I used them mostly for their commonality of the sky, where Zeus is lord. I hope I did not offend anyone by including them or by suggesting that they only happened because some stupid god was pissed off at some woman.

**A Note on Rick Riordan's **_**Percy Jackson**_** series**

I absolutely love these stories. Riordan has taken the old myths and perfectly adjusted them to today in a way that I could only dream of doing. This story does not take place with his universe in mind; I just wanted to adapt the old gods to modernity in my own way. However, if you liked this story and haven't yet read any of Riordan's work, then do yourself a favor and go read them immediately. They are so many planes of existence better than this that it would be useless for me to try to come up with a comparison.

**The Format**

I originally wrote this as a short story for a school contest (shocker: I lost). There was a 6000 word limit – a line which I gleefully toed with the kind of grace that would make Cirque du Soleil collectively blush. Since then I added about 500 words and split the story into three. This was mostly for ease of posting to this website. It's a bit vain of me, perhaps, but splitting the story so that it isn't posted as one huge chunk also allows me to see just how many people were interested enough to continue on. As it happened, the story followed a nice three-part format anyway: part one in Hades, part two in Vivian's past, and part three to conclude. Go figure.

As for the journal format: originally it wasn't. When I first started writing this, the format was actually that Hades was in a therapy session. He would tell the bulk of his story without you knowing who the therapist was, and at the end I would reveal that the therapist was Athena. Not a bad format, I guess, but when it came to actually writing the darn thing I found that the initial conversation between the therapist and Hades took too long. He's not exactly talkative, so she had to goad him into telling his story. It took away from the momentum of the story, and I couldn't quite write Athena well enough to get her to get Hades to open up. His eventual word dump of telling the whole story just felt forced by me, so I made the journal his therapist instead. It was only at the very end – practically that last paragraph – that I decided to have Hades leave the journal out on Earth on purpose.

**The Setting**

Why that specific time and place? I loved all the uproar over the "end of the world" even though, as Hades stated, the Mayans considered it to be a massively lucky thing to be alive during the end of the long calendar. The events took place in the United States because that is where I live and there was no particular reason to make the setting elsewhere. In fact, setting it here helped me with my familiarity of the various disasters. When in doubt, write what you know.

**The Characters**

**Hades** – I love Hades. He really does get a bad rap in today's society. I could go into a lengthy discourse about Christianity being this country's primary religion, how that religious background means we view life and death in very black-and-white, good-and-evil terms, or how it's convenient to equate Hades with Satan since they are both lord of an Underworld, but all of that discourse would take too long and wouldn't be very interesting. The short version: Hades is not Satan. All souls ended up under his care – good and bad – so the comparison just doesn't make sense. The gods split our world into three, so Zeus took Olympus and the sky, Poseidon took the earth and seas, and Hades took everything below. This is why the Romans would later attribute Hades to wealth as well (where does gold come from? Underground!).

As for appearance, I ended up not explaining anyone's looks, though Hades mentioned wearing a robe at one point. I imagined him in a dour black robe. I thought it'd be funny if he wore some festive tie underneath, but there wasn't really a great place to sneak that in to the story.

**Vivian Livers** – She's not based on anyone I know. I wanted her to be roughly of an age where many people are thinking of having babies, so 32 was reasonable if not perhaps slightly old. My guess is that she and her hubby were so busy living their happy life that they simply hadn't had time for kids yet. Or something.

**Zeus** – Zeus is a jerk in the old myths. A big, volatile jerk. Not much of a surprise when he's the god of storms and the sky. I don't feel like I really changed any of that personality. However, after reading through this story again recently, I was surprised at how much Hades and Zeus resemble Marvel's Loki and Thor, respectively (they could probably even be played by the same actors). That was not intentional, but hey: Zeus and Thor are already practically the same god. Why fix something that isn't broken, right?

**The Plot**

Not to brag (well okay, slightly to brag), but I wrote this whole stupid thing in one sitting, and frankly I didn't have a plot in mind when I started. I knew that Hades would save the world from some sort of thing, and it would be the sort of scenario where no one would know that he was the one responsible or that there even _was_ a threat in the first place, so that's probably why the first third of the story is mostly just setting up Hades and his life in these modern times.

Eventually I thought it would be a nice twist that "today" wouldn't be the actual end of the world but the moment in time which cemented the devastating future. From there it just sort of snowballed: I used a bit of medical knowledge to have the accident render Vivian infertile so she would have to adopt (this would ensure that the child was alive in both scenarios – one where Hope turns good from Vivian's love of life, and one where Hope turns bad without her). Frankly I don't remember coming up with Zeus' master plan of turning everything into his domain. That just kinda happened.

**The Message**

The tone is somewhat liberal and/or green, I suppose, but there is ample evidence that we as humans cannot maintain our current trajectory. I didn't want to beat you over the head with anything, but I think it's worth noting that the only way the adopted daughter can save mankind is by enabling us to leave Earth. The current science is suggesting that we are in serious trouble, what with pollution and climate change and population overgrowth and impending water shortages…

Anyway, it's a scary thought, but I don't want to end on that, so here's a random fact: the line about Thanatos using fog machines and mariachi bands for theatrical purposes had me giggling so badly that people around me began to stare. If you happened to be one of those people, then I do apologize. I promise I'm not crazy(ish).

In the end, I hope you enjoyed it. If you've read this far I guess you must have REALLY enjoyed it, so thank you very much for reading. Always feel free to message me with comments, concerns, critiques (I would love to know what I could improve upon). Leave a review if you feel so inclined, but mostly I just hope that this story brought a little more fun into your world.

Peace out,

Lightwing


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